


how you go

by mizdiz



Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, One Shot, Season/Series 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 14:26:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21180923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizdiz/pseuds/mizdiz
Summary: “This ain’t the way you go.”“Yeah?” she asks, and her voice is losing all its edge with every drop of blood that leaks out of her body and into Daryl’s makeshift bandage. “How do I go then?”*vague spoilers for s10 ep3





	how you go

They stumble inside a rundown building. It’s somewhere between a shed and a barn; a single room, with remnants of hay on the floor and cobwebs in the rafters, but it’s small enough that one good look around is enough to tell Daryl there are no walkers around, at least not in here. Outside is a different story, and already he can hear the scritch-scratching of nails on wood; the tap-tapping of hands on glass. Daryl helps Carol to the ground, and then shoves a dusty, old shelf in front of the door and prays that it holds.

He doesn’t have time to dwell on it—no walkers are breaking in this second, and he has other things to attend to. Like the fact that the love of his life is currently bleeding out on a filthy, hay-covered floor.

Daryl kneels beside her and scoops up some dirt and hay into a pile for her to lay her head on. He turns on his flashlight—the batteries are running low, but he’s lucky he has any at all—and gingerly lifts up her shirt to examine her wound.

“It’s bad,” Carol says. Her voice is strained from the pain, but she’s calm.

“You’ll be alright,” Daryl says, trying to keep a neutral expression even as he’s wracked with fear. She’s right. It’s bad.

“I think I’m dying,” Carol says matter-of-factly.

“Shut up,” Daryl says. “No you aren’t.”

The wound is really bad.

He’s not sure how deep the knife went in.

If she’s got internal bleeding and the others don’t find them soon, she might—

“I’m gonna put pressure on this; try an’ stop the bleedin’. Might hurt a lil’.” Daryl derails his own thought train, focusing instead on slipping off his vest and unbuttoning his shirt.

“Is this really the time to be coming onto me?” Carol asks. Daryl’s hands pause for a split second. He casts her an unamused glare before finishing up on the buttons and sliding his shirt off his shoulders.

“Stop,” he mutters. “Don’t got nothin’ else to use as a bandage.”

She laughs, and usually he’d be delighted to hear that particular sound—it’s been an age since she last teased him like this—but that’s precisely why it worries him. She’s been free-falling ever since the pikes, and he’s worried she’s feeling more playful now because she thinks it’s finally all gonna end. Well there’s no way in hell he’s standing for that. He bunches up his shirt and presses it against her wound. She takes a sharp intake of breath and he cringes. 

“Sorry,” he mutters. “Sorry, I know it hurts.”

“Told you there were Whisperers on our side of the border,” she says, and even though she doesn’t sound mad—if anything, she’s teasing him again—he still feels like a gigantic, record-breaking, steaming pile of shit. If he had gotten his head out of his ass he would have seen that she knew what she was talking about. But she hadn’t been sleeping; had been popping pills and referencing conversations they’d never had. He had wanted to believe her—his gut protested every second that he didn't—but the evidence had been stacked up against her. In short, he had doubted her, and now it’ll be his fault if she—

“How are you feelin’? Cold? Dizzy? Anythin’ like that?” 

“No, just feeling stabbed so far,” she says. Daryl sighs, and she adds, a little more seriously, “I’m kind of cold.”

Daryl shines the flashlight at her face. She’s pale. He presses the back of his hand against her cheek. Her skin is clammy.

“Keep talkin’ to me, alright? Even if you get tired.  _ Especially _ if you get tired. I wanna make sure you’re not goin’ into shock.”

“Yes, Dr. Dixon,” she says with a cheeky grin he can’t bring himself to return. God, she sounds so  _ weak _ .

“They’ll find us,” he tells her. “Michonne and the others. They’ll take care of the walkers outside and we’ll get you home and get you patched up and good as new, alright?”

“Alright,” she says, in the same tone he’d used when he’d told her he believed her about the Whisperers. 

“Don’t,” he says.

“Don’t what?”

“Act like you’re already givin’ up.”

“Wound’s deep, Daryl,” she says. The shirt he has pressed against her is already bled through.

“You’ve had worse.”

“Lucky me.”

“You know what I mean. You’ve gotten through worse. This is just another thing.”

“What if I’m tired of getting through things?” she asks. Daryl squints at her.

“The hell’s that s’posed to mean?”

“It means, what if you took your hands off my stomach and just let whatever's gonna happen, happen?”

Daryl presses harder against her abdomen. 

“You can fuck right off with that shit,” he says.

“I’m tired, Daryl.”

“Keep talkin’ to me.”

“That’s not the kind of tired I mean.”

He knows. He knows she’s talking about how her body’s been through so much trauma, even pre-apocalypse, that it’s a miracle it’s made it this far, and she’s tired of it still getting beat down even after all of that. She’s talking about how this is another goddamn wound she has to heal, and she doesn’t only mean like the scar on her arm where the glass impaled her a few weeks ago. She means the gaping wounds in her heart from all her dead children; the gashes in her conscience from every life she’s ever taken; the constant ache of forcing herself to survive every goddamn day in a world like this. She’s tired, Daryl knows this, but she’s not allowed to go to sleep. Not yet. He says,

“This ain’t the way you go.”

“Yeah?” she asks, and her voice is losing all its edge with every drop of blood that leaks out of her body and into Daryl’s makeshift bandage. “How do I go then?”

Daryl frowns at where the white of her stomach is stained crimson. She has a whole litany of battle wounds from times where it wasn’t her time to go.

He doesn’t think she’s expecting an answer, and truth be told, it’s not a question he’d usually reply to, but he decides she needs to know that today is  _ not _ the day.

“It’ll be your heart,” he tells her. “Not an attack or somethin’, it won’t be nothin’ that hurts. There won’t be pain.”

She doesn’t say anything or a moment, and Daryl checks to make sure she’s still conscious. Her eyes are glassy and groggy, but they’re fixed on his.

“Will it be in a fight?” she asks quietly, and Daryl shakes his head.

“Nah. There won’t be no more fights to fight by the time you go. Uh-uh, you’ll be in bed, all warm and comfy and shit. Nice sheets. You know like them rich people ones with the billion thread count or whatever? That’s what you’ll be layin’ on.”

“What about a fluffy pillow? One of those big memory foam ones? Always loved those.”

“Oh, hell yeah, baby,” Daryl says, the term of endearment slipping out before his brain has a chance to catch up with his mouth. If she’s bothered by it she doesn’t show it on her face, but he wonders if it prompts her to ask her next question. She asks,

“Will you be with me?” For a second he wonders if she’s ribbing him again, but her expression is earnest and shy.

“‘Course,” he says softly. “‘Course I will. I’ll be right there. Hell, I’ll even hold your hand. If you want, I mean.” 

“What if...will the bed be big enough for you to hold all of me and not just my hand?”

Daryl swallows, even though his mouth is dry.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be next to you, and I’ll hold all’a you, and when you go I’ll still be there. Right ‘til the very end I’ll be there.” 

“Will I be afraid?”

“Nah. Neither of us will, ‘cause we’ll know it’s time, you know? We both seen death so much already, it won’t scare us none. Might be a little sad, though. I’ll be sad. Won’t be able to say goodbye easily, warnin’ you now, but I gotta let you go first, ‘cause there ain’t no way you’re goin’ out without someone who loves the hell outta you seein’ you off.”

Carol’s eyes are glistening, and he doesn’t think it’s from the shock. He turns his attention back to her abdomen. It’s still bleeding, but it’s slowing. From outside, the walkers groan, and the old wooden building groans right along with them. It’s an oddly peaceful cadence. 

“Daryl?”

“Yeah?”

“How do you go?”

“Always thought it’d be cool to go out in an explosion. You know, action movie style?” He grins at Carol’s laugh and then shrugs. “I dunno. They’ll pro’ly say it’s somethin’ like natural causes or some shit.”

“But it won’t be?”

“Nah. It’ll be more complicated than that.”

“How so?”

He ducks his head.

“Think eventually missin’ someone too much can be fatal. Not right away, and only when you don’t got no one else, you know? When you’re old and grey and seen enough of the world and you’re ready to go see ‘em again, hopin’ beyond hope that you will—that’s when it takes you.” 

“Who will you miss so much that you’ll decide it’s your time to go?”

“That’s a stupid question.”

“Answer it anyway.” 

Daryl forces himself to raise his head. She’s ashen, with hay in her hair. She’s watching him, uneasy, as if she really isn’t sure what his answer’s gonna be.

Careful to keep the pressure on her wound with one hand, Daryl sits up on his knees and hovers above her. He waits a beat to see if he’s met with any resistance, and when he’s not he leans down and presses his lips to hers. It’s chaste and polite—it’s to prove a point—but even still, his nerve endings spark, sending a shiver down his spine, and he realizes then that he’s been waiting for the better part of a decade for this.

“You,” he whispers, pulling a breath’s distance away. “I’ll miss you.”

Sitting back on his heels, he uses his free hand to brush tears off her cheeks. She leans into his touch, eyes fluttering closed.

“I’ll be there,” she says.

“What, sweetheart?”

“Beside you. When you go, I’ll be there. You won’t see me, but you’ll know. And when you do go, I’ll be waiting, and it’ll be  _ so _ good to see you again. The best.”

From outside comes the unmistakable sound of a katana slicing into a walker. Muffled voices can be heard through the walls. Daryl smiles at Carol.

“The best,” he repeats in agreement. “But we ain’t there yet. This ain’t how you go. You hear me? It ain’t.”

“I hear you,” she says, like she believes him now. “I’m not going anywhere. Not today.”

Daryl cups her face, just as the barn door swings open. He nods, saying with conviction,

“Damn straight, baby. Not today.” 

**Author's Note:**

> these words were in my head. i put them in a notebook and then typed them into a google doc and then copied them and put them here and then subsequently put the words that were originally in my head into yours. writing is strange like that. hope the words were entertaining, at the very least. ty for consuming my content
> 
> that's all, bye,  
-diz
> 
> p.s. @ scrap metal fans, look for a new chapter this weekend, monday at the absolute latest :peace sign emoji:


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